


By the Gift of the Valar

by AllThatWeSeeOrSeem



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Companion Piece, Covers Long Periods of Time, Drunkenness, Elves Living Into The Modern World, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, History, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of Prose, Multi, Non-Graphic Smut, Overly Dramatic/Emotional Characters, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Post-War of the Ring, Promiscuity, Prostitution, References to Illness, Semi-graphic violence, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:29:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7916893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThatWeSeeOrSeem/pseuds/AllThatWeSeeOrSeem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the last of the elves sail west, Elladan and Elrohir remain behind. Their choice is still before them: to accept immortality and follow their kin, or to forsake it, and suffer a mortal death. Whatever their choice, they will choose together. But even as the world they knew is lost to them forever, that choice is not an easy one to make. Companion to "By the Grace of the Valar", but can be read alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This companion fic to "By the Grace of the Valar" has been in the works (and out of the works, and back in again) since before that one was even finished. I'm finally happy enough, and have the courage enough, to post it. If you have read "By the Grace of the Valar", this fic follows what the twins were up to before they met Thranduil and Maglor in the 1960's. Whoo boy do we have a lot of years to cover!

When the great Lord Elrond departs Imladris and sails into the West, his sons remain behind. When Arwen Undomiel grieves her husband, the King of Gondor, and then follows him into death, her brothers live on.

News of her grief reaches them in Imladris from Gondor, though they had known it would one day come to pass. The great distance between them ensures the twins are powerless to provide her any comfort, as much in vain as it would have been. When she chose Aragorn, when she chose mortality, they knew as well as she did what the outcome would one day be.

Even the love she holds for her son Eldarion, though great, is not strong enough to preserve her, and the twins Elladan and Elrohir perceive all this and know that their fate might someday be the same.

The choice, the one their sister has already made, is still before them. They do not speak openly about it, but it is a constant thought in both their minds.

The choices their father and his brother made haunt them as well. Elros had chosen to abandon immortality while Elrond had lived on, and his sons had seen the devastation it had wrought. They had born witness to the grief their father had endured and would carry with him for eternity.

Elrond and Elros would never be reunited, unless at the ending of the world.

Elladan and Elrohir could not bear such separation. They will not be parted. They are as one being in two bodies, two halves of the same life force mistakenly split. Just as the head cannot live without the heart, neither twin can imagine living on without the other.

Yet though they will choose together, their choice is not an easy one to make.

Perhaps because of their mortal blood they do not feel the call of the sea as strongly as their kin. All they have known is Arda; they know nothing of the lands across the vast sea but that which has been told to them in stories.

They carry the fear of death, should they choose mortality. They know it will mean they will never again see their father, or their mother, whose torture at the hands of orcs they have spent millennia avenging. Nor are they certain of their welcome in Valinor should they arrive with the option of mortality still hanging over them.

They will not leave Arda before they can decide whether to abandon immortality and live mortal lives, or to embrace it and follow their kin into the West.

And so they remain while the rest of their kin move westward in increasing numbers.

Lothlorian is abandoned. Then Imladris, too, begins to empty. What little news reaches them from Mirkwood comes in the form of strange tales of its ruler, who it is said has left his people to dwell in the cemetery of the city of Dale, grieving its dead king.

The brothers preside over the desolate valley they have inherited. Lacking their father’s influence, the splendor of the place fades, its enchantment withers in spite of their care.

They shelter the last of the travellers who pass through on their way to the coast, learning what they can of their relations in Gondor.  
Their sister’s son, Eldarion, rules well, it is said. The twins speak of visiting Gondor, but as the seasons change and the years slip by, it never comes to pass. There are many excuses which are made for not undertaking the journey. The distance, though they have travelled farther, their duties to Imladris, though they are often enough hard pressed to come up with activities to fill their time.

Mostly, though they do not acknowledge it, they know they would find only grief there, in the memory of their sister, and of Aragorn who their father had raised and who they had come to love as a brother.

Then, news reaches them of Eldarion’s death. There are now so few travellers to seek the Last Homely House that their nephew is buried twenty years before they hear word. They can do nothing but hold each other and weep, though they have not seen Eldarion since he was a boy, and he died a grey-haired old man. They know nothing of his successor.

The steady parade of elves travelling through the valley dwindles and then, though they do not realize it is so for many decades, there are no longer any elves left who will sail.

The halls of Imladris grow dim. Its stonework begins to crumble. In certain places nature has crept back in. The roots of trees have forced their way up through the floor, moss has begun to creep along the rooftops, and birds have begun to build their nests in abandoned rooms. The fire has gone out in the great hall and neither brother can bear to see to its re-lighting.

They are the only ones left in the valley.

One day Elrohir approaches his brother, their travel cloaks in hand. They do not speak. They knew this day would come and there is understanding between them. Elladan nods, once, then turns to look out over the valley one last time. It is time for them to depart.

And so the twin sons of Elrond move off into the wilds to dwell among the Dunedain.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, please let me know of any mistakes, or if there are any tags I should or could add. Trying to find tags is always the hardest part!

At first they are welcomed, as they always have been.

When the brothers emerge from the forest into the clearing where the Dunedain have made their camp, they are recognized, given the welcome of heroes and gathered into the midst of those who are the last people in Arda which they can call kin.

The Dunedain still enjoy the extended lifespans gifted to them by Elros’ blood. The oldest now among them can nearly remember back into their childhoods when the brothers last appeared. Still, most are merely the descendants of those who hunted orcs alongside them in the years before the War of the Ring.

Yet the Dunedain know their origins. They look on the brothers as family. They respect their great age and elvish blood and, though they have had no contact with elves for many long years, it has not been so long that their wisdom and insight is not well remembered.

The brothers weave a new life for themselves. They hunt and fish and gather wild berries and plants. They know the lands far better than even the most well-traveled among the mortal men and women. They teach the Dunedain some of their father’s healing skill, and are pleased to discover they retain the languages of their elven ancestor.

There are warriors yet among them, too, eager to prove their skill alongside the elvish twins. Elladan and Elrohir are, as ever, keen for the blood of orcs to bathe their blades. Together they clear whole legions of orcs who still roam the lands following the fall of Sauron, picking off the stragglers and survivors even so many decades afterwards.

While otherwise gentle and carefree, the brothers are fearsome and skilled warriors. They never leave a battlefield without being cleansed in orc blood, their armour painted with it, their weapons dripping.

Their fellow warriors look on them with awe.

Little mortal children idolize the twins, sit around their feet to listen to stories of their adventures. The elderly come to them for advice, remembering their past deeds.

They are urged to take wives from among the people, to father children and strengthen the bloodline. They refuse, out of respect for their uncle. They will take no lovers either, though that, too, is offered by many.

As the years pass they are content among the Dunedain, but they are not at peace.

At night they lie side by side in their tent and listen to the sounds of the camp around them, and they know that they do not truly belong.  
Before when they had joined up with the Dunedain, they did so with the knowledge that they would return soon enough to Imladris and their own kind. They had not been so troubled when they would arrive after a century or two to find all those they knew dead, and a new generation in their place.

Now there is no home for the brothers to return to and forget the mortality of their kin. Now when there is a death they mourn. When there is a birth they rejoice. Though they have always loved these people they have wound their lives too tightly with their own, and they know it can only end in grief.

But then, as the centuries pass, the Dunedain begin to change.

They increasingly bring men and women from Rohan and Gondor into their families, produce children who look less and less like Elros with every generation. There are soon few who can claim an undiluted bloodline. With less of Elros’ blood the Dunedain can no longer live on to the great ages they once did. Men and woman who once may have lived over two hundred years die old and grey at a mere hundred and fifty, and then at a hundred.

For Elladan and Elrohir time appears to fly by in a whirlwind. It seems they scarcely hold a newborn babe in their arms before they are digging its grave to receive the body of an aged creature, scarcely recognizable.

The Dunedain become more interested in leaving the wandering lifestyle and settling down to farm and raise their families. Tales reach them of the splendors of civilizations beyond their camp, and they begin to wish for such wonders, to claim land of their own on which to prosper.

It is a time of peace; none now can remember the wars the twins still tell tales of. The Dunedain cannot recall the threat of Sauron or his orcs, who no longer terrorize the landscape. It has been a thousand years since the twins had orc blood stain their blades. It is all a distant memory, little more than a fantastical tale told to entertain on long dark winter nights.

There is no longer a need to learn to fight. Where once the Dunedain would stand shoulder to shoulder with the twins, not so far removed from them in battle skill, now they lag behind. Sons and daughters who had once been schooled mercilessly by their parents, because their lives depended then on such knowledge, now give only a passing instruction in how to wield a sword to their own children.

And as the centuries go by, as generations grow old and die, the attitude of the Dunedain towards the brothers also begins to change.  
As the Dunedain seek peace, the elven twins begin to unnerve them. The Dunedain draw back from the brothers, and yet are never hostile. Perhaps they are afraid, intimidated by their great beauty, their ferocity. The brothers are too wild, too perfect, too vicious.

They are merely an oddity, always present, never changing. The oldest among the Dunedain cannot remember a time when the twin sons of Elrond had not been present, like living deities, unnaturally beautiful, wise and ageless. They are nothing more than relics of a forgotten time, which the Dunedain have put aside. While the Dunedain strive to move forward, to carve out a place for themselves in the world, the brothers are no more than a cumbersome anchor to the past.

Respect changes to uncertainty, then mistrust. Children begin to fear the tales they tell, and then to grow bored with them. Where before leaders had sought their advice, now they view their ideas as archaic, or fear the brothers will usurp them.

There comes a time when Elladan and Elrohir look at the men and woman around them and no longer recognize them as kin. They look into the faces of the Dunedain and no longer see themselves looking back.

There are few who come to see them away. There are fewer still who regret their departure.

The brothers say their final farewell to what remains of their kin and move out into the world once more. Yet the land has changed, and whereas the stories of old still linger among the Dunedain as myth and legend, elsewhere there is no trace of the world the twins once knew.


	3. Chapter 3

The world they knew is gone.

The borders on the map of Arda have been re-drawn. Gondor has overrun Rohan and the two peoples are now one. Together they have conquered Mordor, turned the barren ash-choked plane into dusky farmlands. The Haradrim have been re-named, and have built an even greater empire for themselves, turning their efforts to trade and exploration. They have set out in large ships and have found new lands, neither Arda nor Aman, populated by peoples the elves never knew of.

Of the Dwarves there is little sign. Of Hobbits there is even less.

No doubt both races have gone to ground, turned their back on the world of Men which grows ever larger, spreading outwards and eating up great swathes of land like mould on the surface of a loaf of bread.

Elves have been entirely forgotten. They exist in the oldest of tales as mere shadows of what they were, but no man or woman believes there were ever such a people.

In this world of peace and open trade, war and weapons and hardship is put aside. Man has turned soft and seeks indulgence. There is prosperity. Rich cities rise up in lush river valleys, timber buildings topple to make way for brick and stone. Luxuries arrive from the lands across the seas, new fabrics and rich spices, strange fruits and vegetables and animals the twins have never before seen.

Emerging from the secluded Dunedain camp hidden deep in the forests of the north is not unlike stepping out into sunlight after spending far too long underground. At first the brothers struggle to get their bearings. There seems to be no place for them in what the world has become. Their healing craft is now surpassed by the healing knowledge of humanity, their ways outdated, the plants and herbs they relied on are now scarce or even extinct. Of athelas, the once-prized Kingsfoil, there is no sign.

Their battle skill, likewise, is useless to them. There is no war. They are forced to sell their elven-made swords to obtain currency, which are only melted down for tools and farm implements, in indifference to their fine craftsmanship.

The brothers wander for years, exploring the lands they used to know, seeking the familiar but finding little they can recognize. They have nothing but what they can carry with them. They beg for what they need; food, coin, clothing, and a place to sleep when the nights grow cold in winter.

They are aimless, purposeless. But then, they discover that they hold one advantage.

Their mortal blood is scarcely visible in them. Elladan and Elrohir stand out because of their beauty, their supernatural grace, the wisdom in their eyes that seems to be beyond their age, and yet no one who looks upon them can guess at their true nature. When contrasted among the elves their features were perhaps more like those of men, but there is a marked difference between them and the humans around them. Their loveliness is acknowledged wherever they go, their exquisite features praised without any understanding of their origin.

In this place where extravagance reigns, the pleasures of the flesh are a commodity. The twins learn to use their bodies, to exchange slaked lust for coin, for shelter. They have both taken lovers before; they are well versed in such matters. They quickly become known for their skill, teaching new things to the experienced and virginal alike.

They are soft and young and ephemeral, these mortals, pleasure seekers by nature and eager to learn and please. Elladan revels in their delight at his touch, and delights in turn at sampling the joys of their flesh. Elrohir follows his brother’s example, though with less abandon.

Elladan enjoys the attention, delights in the pleasure of it just as much as he gives pleasure to others. He is sought for his wantonness, his extroverted nature. Elrohir they want for his coy smiles and soft ways. While Elladan actively hunts for willing bed partners, Elrohir waits for them to proposition him.

For many years, everything is plentiful. They live in luxury, treated to fine food and finer clothes, amassing wealth in rare jewels and gold. They are lords no longer, yet lord over their admirers.

But then, the world changes once again.

War returns for the first time in millennia. With no common enemy to be found in orc armies, humanity begins to turn on itself. Small differences between one country and another become striking without the larger differences which might be noted between Man and Elves, or Man and Dwarves, or even between Man and Hobbits.

The twins cannot choose sides.

At first they flee. Yet war follows. They find refuge in one country only to be driven from it. One war burns itself out and another sparks up from its ashes, an endless cycle of destruction and panic and death. Borders are erased. Peoples are erased. There seem very few spaces of peace between the years of war. 

Soon the brothers are swept up in the chaos. Their battle prowess becomes known and their loyalty is fought over and bartered for. For the first time in centuries they have weapons in their hands once again. They are offered gold for their services, but refuse. They accept no payment for the slaughter of innocent men and women, helpless pawns on the battlefield unlucky enough to encounter their blades. For the first time the brothers are bathed in the red blood of mortals instead of the black blood of orcs. The seasons pass, and then the years. Soon the centuries, too, slip by.

The twins stop measuring the years; they cease to mark the passage of time. Elrohir figures they are by now over ten thousand years old, but they cannot be sure. Even the means of measuring time has changed.

And still their choice hangs over them, but they have found no answer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of want to keep going with these, though it really departs from where this whole idea started (a simple Barduil story, I swear). Who else didn't sail. Celeborn?

The brothers explore beyond the boundaries of what used to be Arda, travel across continents and seas, meet peoples they had never met before. Every time they board ship they wonder if it will wash up on the shores of Aman, but that is one place they never reach. After all, they always sail with mortal men, who are not welcome in Valinor. They begin to wonder if it is still out there, or if it met the fate of Numenour, or if it has been hidden by the Valar. 

They watch civilizations wax and wane. They sit for hours listening to philosophers in Greece and pose to be immortalized in statues. They flee the devastation of Pompeii under a great cloud of ash, helpless. Great tombs rise up around them in Egypt, aqueducts in Rome.

The brothers find themselves in Carthage, where they all but fall in love with a general named Hannibal. They admire his tenacity, his tactical skill. They follow him in his mad journey to attack Rome, help him lead a group of elephants over the greatest mountains they have ever crossed. It is an impossible task. Most of the elephants die. 

Yet when Hannibal begins winning victories on the battlefields of Rome, the brothers flee once again. Their inability to age ensures they cannot remain among the same people for very long. A few years, a decade at most, and suspicions begin to grow. 

For a while they make their way steadily east, mostly to see how far the land truly goes. When they come to China, they hear strange tales of a land farther across the ocean than anyone has ever traveled before, and they begin to fear how much larger the world is than they have ever known. How small Arda seems in comparison, and they wish their learned father could be with them to discover it. 

In the fifth century tales reach them of a being who has been spotted wandering the coast, tall and dark haired and wild. They say his face is that of an angel’s, more beautiful than any man or woman. It is said that this being speaks words which no one can understand, seeks for places no one has ever been. 

Together they chase these whispers, remembering the stories once told them by their father of the last of the Fëanorians. They search shorelines and inlets, inquire at every port of trade. 

Yet after years of fruitless searching they are forced to confront the fact that these tales must be no more than the exaggerated accounts of distrustful and superstitious peoples. Eventually, the stories begin to recount that this being has left the coast and moved off into the world, and then, no matter how thoroughly they still seek, there are no more tales or rumors to follow. 

It becomes a game in their wanderings to pick out the places landmarks they once knew. It is a game which is not so easily won.

The great city of Minas Tirith has long ago fallen and been reduced to rubble, though in the new city which has grown up instead, buildings have sometimes made use of a white stone or two which once made up it’s walls. On the coast, the Grey Havens still stand, though as ruins. Those who live in the villages nearby will not approach the place, claiming it is haunted.

The Anduin river still flows, though it’s course has changed. The Lonely Mountain still stands. The twins search in vain for the great forests of Lothlorian and Mirkwood, whose trees have long been felled. New forests have grown up instead, young trees who neither walk nor speak nor sing.

The brothers eventually grow tired of their wandering lifestyle. They crave a home, long to spend more than a few years among people besides each other. Those they do not flee from to avoid suspicion die of old age. 

Almost by accident, they find themselves turning their steps towards familiar lands. The valley of their birth suddenly calls to them more ardently than the sea ever has. 

For the first time in millennia, they are home. Yet there is nothing now left of Imladris but small rises and divots in the landscape where the walls of the buildings once stood. The formerly meticulous gardens have grown wild and unrecognizable, spreading on up the hill unfettered. 

The brothers fall to their knees and begin to dig, and soon they uncover the broken stones which made up the rooms they once called their own. The great hall, their father’s study, their own chambers. Only their memories of the place can now identify what the ruins before them once were. 

In their digging they uncover a fine silver button wedged between two stones of the floor, its shape and design nagging familiar until Elladan recognized it as Arwen’s. They weep, then, clutching at the tiny tarnished thing, the first and last artifact they have of their sister. 

That night they curl up together in each other's arms in the corner where Elladan’s bed once stood. It had likely been looted long ago, or else left to rot, and lay beneath them in broken, decomposed fragments. 

Though they had long known it, for perhaps the first time the reality of their situation has crashed down upon them. They are truly alone. 

“At least the stars have not changed.” Elrohir says, though they have, and they both know it. 

Their grandfather’s star has burned out, though neither remember when nor have been courageous enough to note its absence aloud. 

They are back in the valley where they grew up, the haven their father had created and their mother loved and their sister thrived. But it is no longer home. 

The twins abandon the valley once more, and this time, they know that they will not return.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! You’ve actually read what must be the most boring fic ever. I know, I just re-read it. Oh well, let’s just get this one done and out of the way. The next few chapters should get a bit more action-filled, at any rate.

The year is 932 and Elladan stands bound to a wooden post in the center of the city square. They have tied his hands and piled kindling at his feet. 

Those who accuse him speak loudest, their voices rising above the crowd who fear for their own safety should they offer defense or sympathy. They point to his promiscuity, his fair features, the points of his ears to claim that he is a demon made flesh. 

They would have Elrohir bound too, but he has been more discreet. While Elladan in his way had charmed and flirted and seduced his way into half the beds in the city, Elrohir had taken just one lover. The man was an official, rich and powerful, and had bribed and paid for Elrohir’s freedom and the saving of his own reputation.

Still they must restrain him, hold him in check from running to his brother’s aid. 

But they are unmatched.

They are poor, sickly and underfed, weakened by disease which runs rampant through the city streets. They think only that they restrain a young man and cannot imagine elvish strength or millennia of battle training. 

A man approaches the pyre with a torch blazing in the darkness, and Elrohir vibrates with fury and strains in their grasp. 

They do not realize he has broken free until they begin to fall. Elrohir has relieved one of them of the spade they had employed as a weapon and wielded its blunt edge to tear through their throats. 

Elrohir is fury and vengeance. He fights like the demon his brother is accused of being, brandishes the simple garden implement as though it were a finely honed sword even as flames begin to lick at his brother’s feet. 

“He is wild, a beast among men!” a monk is shouting, and Elrohir brings the spade down so hard against his head that the skull beneath shatters like a dropped egg. The man crumples to the ground, his lips still working like a fish brought up out of the water as blood pools on the ground around his head. In death he is given a crimson halo.

The people scatter. Elrohir braves the fire to tear free his brother’s bonds. 

They flee the city – together, always together – and leave what little possessions they had amassed behind them. 

Afterwards the monk’s words haunt them, though they laugh over them. They are definitely not beasts, though they are certainly not men, either. 

There are new cities to explore, and they settle for a time in one, then another. In the cities it is easiest to blend in, to conceal themselves in anonymity. 

Then, the plague strikes.

The people around them are dying by the thousands, perhaps the tens of thousands. The twins struggle to recall such a tragedy ever befalling Arda. But of course, that was a world of elvish medicines and mortals were not as numerous. Gondor and Edoras were dwarfed by the cities of this new age.

Elladan and Elrohir, immune by virtue of their elvish blood, do not bother to flee the city as the men and women around them make haste to do. Most have nowhere to go, have no means to flee to the countryside to escape the pestilence, and so must remain and risk death.

They call on their father’s teaching, the elvish healing arts that have not been lost to them. They push past the superstitious doctors in their ridiculous long masks right into the very heart of the ravaged streets.

Their methods are met with mistrust. Their denial that the pestilence is spread by smell is laughed at. 

And it is true that most they treat cannot be saved, but some are, and each life saved is a victory. 

In 1661 Elrohir finds a young woman and takes her as his lover. They have each had lovers before, but not like this. Elladan sulks like a petulant child.

But Elrohir will not give her up, and he will not share her. Elladan thinks his brother might even love her in some way, but Elrohir will not discuss her with him.

“She will be dead soon enough.” He only says.

“Then why, why?” Elladan cries, but Elrohir is silent.

Elladan spends less and less time at their home and Elrohir worries for him. He wonders if Elladan will abandon them. 

There is not enough love for her in him to consider choosing mortality. His love for his brother is still greater, and Elladan has not yet made his choice, and so Elrohir, too, will wait. 

And her life is waning. She is young yet and should be strong and healthy, but there are some illnesses which he is powerless to treat and which her body cannot overcome.

Elrohir tries to remember the lessons in healing that his father taught, so long ago. Yet the plants and herbs he might make use of either no longer grow or are simply not to be found in the bowels of the city, where everything is mud and brick and stone and filth. 

He fights to have a physician come to see her. Only a priest will come instead. He offers everything he has, but it is not enough. They own nothing. Their house is a hovel, a wooden shack with a makeshift roof that dips low in the center and leaks when it rains. The city around them is sickness and death and starving children crying barefoot in the street. They have fallen so far from the days when they wore gold gifted to them by kings for the simple act of sharing their bodies.

He silently begs, not the first time, for Elladan to return. Elladan would force the doctor to come, would drive him to their home at the point of a sword. 

But Elladan does not come.

He makes love to her wondering who his brother is sharing his body with. He gathers her increasingly frail form to him and hopes his brother is safe. He finds his way into her body, where she grips him tightly for all the strength she lacks in her arms to hold him or her legs to support her long enough to leave the bed, and he hopes Elladan is not too drunk this night to find his way back home to them. 

She tries to reassure him, smooths the lines on his brow with soft fingers and whispered words. But it does little to soothe him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's that. I am so upset with this. This chapter is the only one I'm kind of happy with because I wrote it back when I first got the idea for this. I guess I just lost the story I was going to write in the months I spent not writing it. There was going to be a great bit in there about the 1920's and everything. Ah well, if inspiration comes back to me, I might re-write this at some point.

He needs his brother with him, as he has always had, but his brother is not there.

Elladan spends days and weeks at a time getting drunk and following strangers to their beds. He no longer knows the passage of time, loses track of dates and days and seasons. Always there is someone to buy for him what he wants, drink with him and fuck him when the taps run dry. Sometimes he stumbles home and sometimes he spends the night in a stranger’s embrace, and sometimes he wakes to morning’s light in the gutter, covered in spilled ale and horse shit, the once proud elf lord of Imladris.

He wants to grab Elrohir and shake him. He wants to throttle the woman who has invaded their lives. He wants to flee but cannot, not when his brother might be the only other left of their kind. He cannot because it is his brother. He cannot though he equally cannot bear the sight of them together. He hates her.

Elladan buries himself in a stranger’s willing body and tries not to imagine his brother taking his pleasure with the mortal who he had seen fit to push between them. 

Then comes the day when he opens his eyes and finds himself gazing up into his own face, though the eyes are full of sorrow where his eyes are dull and empty. 

Elrohir has come for him.

“Where is your whore?” Elladan asks.

But Elrohir only replies “my wife is dead and buried. I have searched for you.” And even as Elladan sees for the first time the slim metal band on his brother’s finger, his twin is hauling him to his unsteady feet.

Elladan wants to weep. Elrohir has come for him at last. There are tears forming in the corners of his twin’s eyes but they do not fall. 

“Forgive me.”

Elladan shakes his head. His throat is raw and his jaw clenched and he struggles to control his limbs. Elrohir is his, his twin. Elrohir _is_ Elladan, just as surely as Elladan is Elrohir. He wants to tell Elrohir that forgiveness is not necessary, he wants to reassure his twin, but he cannot speak. 

Elrohir has seen him shake his head and has misinterpreted the gesture’s meaning. Elladan can see the devastation in the grey eyes, so like his own, so he forces himself forward until he is crashing into the body in front of him. 

Elrohir grabs at him, keeps them both from hurtling back against the wall of the alleyway. 

“Brother” Elladan finally moans, and presses his face into Elrohir’s shoulder.

Elladan thinks he might feel the way mortals feel when they fall ill. His head feels heavy and cluttered, his ears ring, his limbs – damn them – refuse to cease trembling. 

“The city burns,” Elrohir is saying, “we must leave.”

It is only then that Elladan notices the smoke in the air, thick and choking, the screams and the bray of frightened horses. 

“What has happened, is there war?”

“No, - where have you been? You look like a beggar. - No one knows how it started, but it is spreading fast. Come.” 

Elladan allows Elrohir to drag him along the streets, away from the flames. The fire leaps and dances along the crowded wooden buildings, turning the city to blackened rubble.

“The Cathedral!” they hear someone cry. A bucket of brackish water is pressed into Elladan’s hand as he is dragged along by his brother. He takes a large swallow to help clear his head and then passes it back, and only later realizes they had meant him to use it to help quell the flames. 

He tugs hard on his brother’s hand and finally Elrohir halts. 

“Where are we going?” Elladan demands. “Where are you taking us?”

“Away from here, out of the city.”

“The house - ”

“It is gone! I sold it months ago.” Elrohir pulls Elladan’s arm and they are moving again, he calls back over his shoulder, “Where have you been, where were you when I needed you?”

“You did not need me, you had her! I thought you had her!”

Elrohir does not acknowledge this, “we will leave the city, there is nothing here for us now.”

“We should help them!” Elladan tries, shouting to be heard over the din.

But his twin will not be halted again, and his response comes back to him through the smoke:

“Let them burn.”

They are not the only ones to flee the city, but even after the flames are doused and its inhabitants return to re-build, the brothers carry on. They once roamed the wilds, knew how to survive in the forests, and they returned to those ways with ease. 

They shun money and wealth from that moment on. They will never again attempt to own property or settle down anywhere for long. In time Elrohir buries his grief and the harshness of manner which came with it, but he never spoke of that time again. 

They cross borders and boundaries, and often lose track of and fail to mark the passing years.

It is the 1960’s. They have embraced the culture around them, buried themselves in the mortals around them if only to feel just a little bit less desolate. 

“We are old, brother.” Elrohir has begun to say, “We are so very old and we are alone. Perhaps it is time for us to die.”

The twin sons of Elrond stand on a street corner among a group of mortal men and women. They cannot call them friends, though they share a cheap, dirty apartment with them, drink and spoke with them, and make love freely. 

If they were honest with themselves, they have become reckless. It would take very little, now, to prompt them to finally make their choice, and with no one around them but mortal men and woman who are aging and dying before their eyes, the choice they will make has never been clearer.

But then as they stand on the sidewalk a man approaches them. But no, it is not a man at all. He is tall and his hair is dark and falls to his waist. 

His eyes shine bright as he gazes upon the brothers; he wears the look of one lost in the desert who has just found water. 

Elladan is the first to notice. He grasps Elrohir’s arm fiercely. 

“We are not alone, brother.”


End file.
